As the wary among us look at overpopulated pictures of Lollapalooza and re-create the grimace emoji face, the trend of in-game concerts is looking better and better. Ariana Grande is the latest star to headline a cyberfestival, Fortnite’s Rift Tour, which (per Pitchfork) will take place August 6–8 in the game.
Grande isn’t the first musician to perform inside a video game. Travis Scott hosted a big ol’ Fortnite party, debuting his collab with Kid Cudi in the game. And for reasons that feel inexplicable, part of the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker backstory debuted in Fortnite. Remember the beginning part of the opening exposition crawl that said, “THE DEAD SPEAK!†with an exclamation point and everything? The dead speaking(!) was an exclusive event inside of Fortnite. Beyond the world of Epic Games, Bebe Rexha was one of three musicians to rerecord their songs in Simlish for a festival event inside of The Sims 4. And as Netflix dips its toe in the gaming arena, it seems likely that some Netflix originals will premiere within their games. Every day, we get closer to Ready Player One and farther from God.